Actually ... could almost point everyone to Wikipedia on this one:
In computer science and information science, an ontology
formally represents knowledge as a set of concepts within a domain, and the relationships
between those concepts. It can be used to reason about the entities within that
domain, and may be used to describe the domain.
and therefore Zachman is not an ontology. It's what the most recent
summit links to. Unfortunately, the link to reason then says on
humans can do it:-(
Also unfortunately, Formal ontology is on Wikipedia:
A formal ontology is an ontology
with a structure that is guided and defined through axioms.
The goal of a formal ontology is to provide an unbiased (domain- and application-independent) view on reality. Formal ontologies are founded upon a
specific formal upper level
ontology, which provides consistency checks for the entire ontology
and, if applied properly, allows the modeler to avoid possibly
erroneous ontological assumptions encountered in modeling
large-scale ontologies.
While I hate to suggest anything that might separate the Ontolog
Forum participants from their marketeering friends ...
1) Why doesn't the Ontolog Forum take it upon itself to promote a
replacement to Gruber's 'standard' definition with an accurate,
useful one similar to above?
2) Why doesn't the Ontolog Forum take it upon itself to become
editor of ontology/reasoning (computer science) on Wikipedia and
maintain the new 'standard' definition there? Gruber's paper could
even be marked as 'obsolete' in the references.
If opposed to Wikipedia, then somewhere more authoritative that can
be linked from Wikipedia and elsewhere might do ... (e.g. a NIST
ontology definition page).
Cheers,
David
On 10/12/2011 4:54 AM, David C. Hay wrote:
At 10:09 AM 10/11/2011, you wrote:
Content-Language:
en-US
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="_000_919F5BFA2404AB48BCA20A05A406B177278B1D5397EMV64UKRDdoma_"
I was asked a question the other day and as I don’t think I
reached a
satisfactory answer I thought I would seek more learned
opinion and
post the question to this board. The question I was asked was
“what does
it mean when the new Zachman framework declares itself as an
ontology and
specifically the Enterprise Ontology” and to quote the
Zachman.com
website “the Framework is the ontology for describing the
Enterprise”
So what does something have to be to call itself an ontology
and perhaps
more so in the commercial sector.
I like Ed's definition: "the language has a
grammar
and an interpretation of the grammatical constructs that is
suitable for
automated reasoning," although being "suitable for
automation" does not mean that it has been done.
What John has is a collection of completely different approaches
to
describing the world. The differences in perspective,
represented
by the rows makes it very difficult to call the framework as a
whole an
ontology. I did attempt to produce a metamodel of a large part
of
the framework a couple of years ago (Data Model Patterns: A
Metadata
Map), and I suppose that metamodel could be called an
ontology.
But my experience with the framework is that only the row I have
renamed
the "Architect's View" (Row Three, what John had called the
"system designer's view") produces a true, conceptual picture
of the organization. The "business owners' views" are
multiple, overlapping, and often contradictory. The whole
point of Row Three is to construct a coherent, single view of
the
organization that encompasses all the particular business
owners'
views.
From row four down, you are describing technology, not the
business.
In the spirit of the architect's view (and focusing on data
only), I
attempted to create an enterprise ontology in my new book this
year,
Enterprise Model Patterns: Describing the World. I would
love to hear anyone's views as to whether I succeeded or not.
The
"language" involved is conceptual entity/relationship
modeling. (OK, I bent UML to accommodate that, even though this
is
not the intended use of UML. But the effect was a clean e/r
model.)
You won't be able to do inferences until the model is translated
into OWL
or some such, but I believe the components required are all
there.
I welcome all flavors of criticism.
Thanks!
Dave Hay
Don’t
get me wrong
as I have a lot of respect for the work John Zachman has done
and I have
used the framework on several occasions as an aid to strategy
and
architecture. I was unfortunately unable to say to my
colleague
that I thought it represented a formal ontology in the way I
am familiar
with. I explained that I worked for three years on an
ontology that
had undergone over 10 years of research, testing and
construction
in Protégé and that it was formally accepted by public bodies
in the UK
and is in active use in the health sector. There are other
major
ontologies that have undergone similar if not more effort to
construct.
Yet without that formal approach how are you able to depend
upon the
model?
So our discussion lead to several conclusions;
1/ Perhaps the Zachman Framework is enough in itself to be
called an
ontology as why should it have to be developed with an
ontology editor
and undergo formal construction and reviews and acceptance
by a public
body (maybe it has and this is not in the public domain). It
is not the
kind of ontology developed in the science fields and used
for example in
the health sector. Zachman International is a private
company and
thus is free to declare what it wants.
2/ The Zachman framework is more of a metamodel and
collection of
concepts that a company then licences the Framework to build
their own
enterprise ontology. This of course places all of the hard
work on the
company unless Zachman International plans to provide an OWL
or Frames
ontology in the future.
3/ Finally, a more controversial conclusion that this is not
enough and
is more of a marketing ploy to capitalise on the increasing
interest in
the commercial sector in ontologies and the semantic web.
Perhaps I am viewing this incorrectly and being too formal in
my
thinking. I would be grateful for any thoughts that might
provide a
better conclusion.
Thanks,
Marc
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe:
mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
--
Managing Director and Consultant
TopQuadrant Limited. Registered in England No. 05614307
UK +44 7788 561308
US +1 336-283-0606
|
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J (01)
|